Cosmo Jarvis : Chapter 2
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Cosmo Jarvis comes championed with the loudest of trumpets. Not just a musician, Jarvis is a ‘songmaker/filmmaker/producer’ who is lauded as a cross between ‘Dizzee Rascal, Alex Turner, Jeff Buckley, Britney Spears and Quentin Tarantino’. Come off it. ‘I shit you not’ retorts the press release.
Well, whatever Harrison Cosmo Krikoryan Jarvis is, he’s got an EP called ‘Chapter 2’, whose four songs I listened to hopefully free from influence his build up afforded.
The record begins with ‘Mel’s Song’, a straight-forward pop number whose lyrical content will ensure it doesn’t get played before bedtime on the radio. I won’t quote from it in case my Mum reads this but safe to say Cosmo throws his heart, soul and colloquial back-catalogue into a song reminiscent of something from Jamie T’s ‘Panic Prevention’ – vocally it is practically spoken and musically it is simple, melodic, and aimed at the heart of summer. It is the melody which gives the song clout, particularly in the chorus, one that would most certainly have suited the drive-time radio its words deny it. Many will love this – it has the accessible and identifiable lyrical simplicity of a song by Mike Skinner – but for me it is just too bare, making for a song that doesn’t increase in quality as it perhaps promises to during its earlier stages. One dimensional would be unfair, but it certainly didn’t represent the work of the artist described in the introduction.
Track two, ‘He Only Goes Out on Tuesdays’, instantly has more to offer. Here we see signs of the musical talent of a man who claims to have written some 250 songs, a fact that belies his 19 years on the planet. The intro sounds like it’s being played on one of those triangles I always got stuck with in music class, but unlike my tuneless bashings these ones prequel something wider, slowly creeping along a path that leads to a verse of impetus, thumping drums and a vocal that exudes confidence, this time supported by a song of real quality. This song is almost twice the length of that which precedes it and yet it feels fresher, more dynamic, and justifies its length. I like the structure of it, too – it is unpredictable and unconventional but in no way does it lack quality for being that way. Really good stuff this, and if track three takes a similar leap forward I’ll be searching the thesaurus for big clever words to describe its amazingness (funny, I couldn’t find amazingness in the thesaurus – must get a new one).
Oh Cosmo, you tease. ‘Mel’s Song’ was thrown in to, erm, throw me, wasn’t it? It must’ve been, because ‘Little Wasted Angel’ is further improvement on track two. Here, Cosmo Jarvis encapsulates his feelings with pinpoint precision – no words are wasted and no sound thrown in without holding a purpose. Moreover, this doesn’t sound like Jamie T or Mike Skinner, it sounds like a proper record in its own right, one of those you hear on the radio then Google the lyrics to. It’s slower than both the first two and it’s this fact that allows the emotion to pour. Lyrically it appears to me to be straightforward, where the first song saw Jarvis stretching and struggling to find words that would make people sit up and listen. This is the complete package, a combination of emotive language and melody that makes a real tune.
All artists can do is progress and rarely before have I known a short EP to document that so simply as ‘Chapter 2’. If Cosmo Jarvis has any better songs in that 250-strong Arsenal of his that progression might just continue and make him a little bit famous.
Fingers crossed.
5/10 + 7/10 + 9/10 = 7/10
Words: Benjamin Coley
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